Clubhouse App: Social Audio
In the beginning there was Meerkat (RIP) which blended live streaming with social networking and it was good. Then Periscope (RIP soon) insisted that major players in social media had turned their head toward the phenomenon. The Stories feature on Snapchat was usurped by Microsoft Excel, Instagram, and seemingly every platform under the sun.
Right now Clubhouse is exploding in popularity by introducing people to social audio, gaining massive attention due to an appearance by Elon Musk.
The platform is currently invite only in addition to being an iOS exclusive app. It has attracted strong participation from the venture capital and startup community as well as those looking for or offering business consultation.
A few years ago I hacked Discord into OBS allowed me to begin streaming Partyline Chat to Twitter and YouTube, it was incredible. Creating a space that facilitated open and Socratic conversations was a great way to learn while networking. Clubhouse overlaps that concept quite well, however the platform is not as useful as Discord due to it’s lack of text-based chat and API integrations, presently. That said, it has remarkable momentum by offering a fun experience.
Conversations are bound to the app, recording requires additional hurdles of permission from participants. This means they exist only as live events, it is not possible to download the audio currently.
Critiques
Clubhouse has probably the worst mobile app logo design in recent memory, it is basically invisible amongst the other apps on my phone and my eyes just fly right over it every time I’m looking for it.
Additionally, it leverages one massive privacy violation (syncing personal phone contacts — I didn’t do that) against social verification from two outside platforms (Instagram & Twitter). That said, Clubhouse is revitalizing my interest for Instagram.
Also, the platform seems to lead users to triangulate an interaction posture that hedges the humblebrag with an inversion of patronizing vocal tones alongside the aesthetic of an call-in AM radio program. Rarely are the conversations legitimate exchanges between people because there is a perception that speakers are “on stage”. It also doesn’t do a great job of highlighting the speaker while they are on the microphone.
I’m very much looking forward to the launch of Twitter Spaces after dabbling with Clubhouse over the weekend and have a lot of curiosity about how Facebook responds to this threat. However, I think that Clubhouse offers the biggest threat to LinkedIn because my entire exposure to the platform has revolved around business networking.
In the meantime, I highly recommend you get a look at Clubhouse. Podcasting has exploded alongside live-streaming and this audio-only platform exists in a space in-between those methods. If you haven’t yet explored creating audio content, Clubhouse is probably a good opportunity to trial your ideas in a noncommittal way.
